Emergent Brethren

Veritas is planning on having our first “Love Feast” (I really don’t like the name….seems like a throwback to the Sixties, or honestly the name of a 70’s Porn Movie) on Sunday October 11. As I began to plan the gathering I sent out a preliminary gathering plan to our Core Group for feedback and their thoughts. This has turned into an e-mail conversation focusing around the feetwashing part of the gathering. I thought I would post some of the thoughts of the Core Group, and get your feedback. What do you do with Feetwashing? Do you do it, do you offer another way of serving each other (handwashing), do you find a modern equivalent, do you forgo the feetwashing altogether? Would love to hear your thoughts and comments.

Here are the comments from my Core Group:

Do we have to wash feet/get our feet washed? I get the whole Jesus got dirty in connecting with us and we need to be ready and willing to get dirty too- and I def think I do that with people (in the mental/emotional/spiritual sense); but is there any alternative for people who don’t want to do that?

am I just being weird over nothing? Totally not trying to be a party pooper….
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To all,

Carmella brought up the same concerns I struggled with about this tradition. Below is my experience

I have been involved in the brethren faith for 5 years and until about a year ago never even considered going the twice annual service where foot washing is performed.

A) I was grossed out
B) I was embarrassed
C) I was cool with washing someone elses feet but didn’t want anyone to do mine.

A. It wasn’t anything gross. A basin is filled with a very mild bleach water solution. The washee placed his feet into or on the edge of the basin and you cupped your hands and poured water over the feet. you then took a towel and dried them.
B. While I was nervous my feet would somehow ruin the entire event my foot washing went just like everyone else. No one singled my tootsies out for ridicule 🙂
C. Willingness to humble myself but refuse to let someone humble themselves before me defeats to whole point of the tradition.

It’s funny I remember the last hour or two before the service being really freaked out and now I’m just meh.

The service was moving and I understand why it is a tradition is some denominations. It will never be my “favorite” service but I hope everyone will try it once and then we as a community can discuss it further. I do believe that in experiencing it you will find something of significant worth.

Ray

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I grew up in a church that regularly did feetwashing and i still don’t like it. Frankly, I have trouble seeing the point. Jesus showed hospitality by caring for his guests who had traveled to be with him. It was especially shocking that a rabbi would do something normally done by a servant. So do we do exactly as Jesus did even though we live in a different culture? Or do we show hospitality in a way that people would be shocked at our humility?
And regarding hospitality, I think we need to turn around our definition to truly understand the concept. In many cultures, hospitality means that you recognize your visitor as someone sent from God with a message or gift for you and you are blessed to have that person visit you. How would we treat people that God sends to us? Would you tell them to take off their shoes so you can wash their feet if that is uncomfortable for them?
I do love the Love Feast idea and if we do the feetwashing thing I’ll do it while gritting my teeth.
Brian

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Just to throw out a different point of view… For me, the footwashing service has always been the most meaningful service. I don’t think it’s as much about hospitality as service. It’s about humbling myself to someone else in the same way that Christ did, as well as allowing someone else to serve me, which in our culture I think is the harder part. I’m not sure there is a modern day equivalent. It certainly isn’t about forcing someone to do something that is uncomfortable for them, and I would assume that anyone that wouldn’t want to do it could just “pass”.

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I grew up with this practice and so I can understand how some people would find it meaningful. I might even find it meaningful if I were with others from my same church tradition and who I knew were comfortable with the practice.

But when I think about some of my neighbors or friends coming and being confronted with this practice, I can almost imagine their aversion to it.
And this makes me uncomfortable. If we do foot washing together but fail to communicate the message of servanthood/hospitality what is the point?
Are we then just serving ourselves? Would those who find this a new
practice really understand what we are trying to do? If we really want
to show service and hosipitality to others and one another, how do we best
communicate that to our current culture? Foot washing was as common and
normal to those of Jesus’ day as going out for coffee is for us. We don’t have servants so much these days so it makes it hard for us to understand and feel the impact of what Jesus really did. I think it’s important for us to find a way in our current culture to show each other love and service in a way that’s completely understood and impacts people.

Ranita

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So as you can see we have a very thoughtful team and one that is concerned about the “other” and those who aren’t yet Christ followers. They are aware of contextualization and understanding culture. They have great insight. I don’t want to do something just because that is what we do, or because we are Brethren. What are your suggestions regarding Feetwashing? Any and all thoughts would be helpful.

Thanks,
Ryan Braught
Veritas
www.veritaspa.org

I’m so excited about what God is and has been doing in and through Veritas the last few weeks. He has done exceedingly more than we can even dream or hope. I feel so blessed to be able to be involved in this new adventure in faith, mission, service, and worship. Here are some of the things that have me excited…

1. This past Sunday we had an amazing turn-out. Now we aren’t all about numbers…but it is awesome to see people coming and having interest. We had 41 people there and when you subtract a friend who brought her small church (I think there were 7 there), and 2 “friends” of Veritas….you get 32 people (including kids). Some of the 32 have been there all 3 weeks, some for 2 weeks, and about 8-10 visited for the first time this past Sunday. Two of the ones who have been there all 3 weeks are F&M college students and they are amazing. I met the one for lunch on Thursday and had a great conversation and I am meeting the other one tonight for coffee (and probably dinner for her). Another who has been there every week is an amazing artist, poet, and overall great person who gets what we are all about and probably travels 30 minutes or so to be with us each week.

2. The visitors who came on Sunday is another reason that I am excited. A couple came with their two children. The father is a friend from years back and is a drummer. He spied the Djembe sitting up front and asked if anyone was playing it… I said I normally did but he would be more than welcome. So he got up and played Djembe during the 1st musical worship set. They have been looking for a missional church to be involved with, and will be returning this Sunday. Another couple came because of our presence at Purple Door. This couple blew me away (the wife’s name is Trinity…instant connection). He is ex-Amish (which is a story I would love to hear) and she is an amazing artist. We have connected via Facebook and it looks like they will join us this coming Sunday.

3. Last evening we had our second worship planning session with 4 of us there. The ideas were flowing last night around our next series entitled “We have questions, do did they”. The thoughts, ideas, and comments that flew around the table last night was amazing. The synergy was evident and electric. I’m excited about the next sermon series.

4. This Sunday is Service Sunday where we go out into the community to seek to be a blessing. At this point we plan to walk through Marietta and pick up trash in various places (streets, parks, etc..) I will be calling the borough office tomorrow to see if there is anything we could do for them.

Anyway I am so excited about what is going on and the future of Veritas. And that’s why I had to write this because I am excited and I just can’t hide it….

Ryan Braught is a church planter who’s put many posts on this website. The church that he is planting, Veritas, is holding its first regular worship service this Sunday!

Here’s what Ryan wrote a few days ago for prayer requests:

1. Launch Sunday: Pray that God would be drawing people to come to the Launch Sunday. Pray that all the various details that need to be done this week will get done. Pray that everything would come together and that Sunday morning at 10:45 AM would be an amazing experience. Pray for those who come who are “true prospects” that they would feel welcomed, loved, and experience God and that they would want to return.

2. CRU: I will be going to Elizabethtown College tonight to attend CRU (Campus Crusade) and to hopefully share a little bit about Veritas as well as hand out Brochures and CD’s. Pray for a fruitful time of relationship building, sharing, and networking. Pray that God may speak to some of the CRU group about being a part of Veritas.

3. Jobs: This has been an area of concern for the past few weeks. As of right now I still don’t have a part time job, and my wife hasn’t found anything in the teaching field (she works now as a substitute and at Sylvan…but would love to find a part time teaching job in a local school district). Pray that God would bring about the right job(s) and that we would have the patience and the trust to wait upon him. Pray also that I would be assertive in seeking out employment. I’ll be making a call today to a person who owns a new café that will be coming to Lancaster. Pray for that conversation (if it happens). Pray for doors to open for either one of us, or the both of us.

4. Prayer Vigil: We are hosting a prayer vigil this coming Saturday September 12 from 7 AM to 7 PM (EST). This is where you sign up to pray for Veritas for one hour wherever you are. All you have to do is to reply to this e-mail letting me know what time you want to pray for us and I will send you another list of prayer request, praises, and ideas of how to use the 1 hour.

5. Finances: So far we feel that we are in a pretty good spot with finances. We have, at this point, enough finances (if we stick to budget) to cover until January. Please continue to pray for us that finances will continue to come together. Pray for the congregations that we have spoken to about partnering with us financially. Pray for other congregations to step up and support us. Pray that God would be glorified in the area of finances.

This week is exciting and there is a lot to do (write a sermon, get a bunch of stuff, set up, finish painting the Veritots room, etc… Pray that I won’t be so busy that I forget to stop and pray and seek God’s guidance.

If you’re not on Ryan’s prayer list, I would invite you to join with many who are praying for these requests. Let’s pray for God to do a mighty work through Ryan and the people that God has called to partner with Ryan in this effort!

Blessings to you all,
Jeff Glass

The book that I am currently working through that I got from The Ooze Viral Bloggers is called “The Seven Faith Tribes” by George Barna. I am about half way through it. I believe this is the first book I have read by George Barna and so far I am having a difficult time with it. Maybe it’s because I have been pretty busy and so much of the reading is broken up into pieces. In the book Barna lays out 7 faith tribes that make up America. The 7 tribes are Captive Christians, Casual Christians, Mormons, American Jews, Muslims, Spiritual Skeptics and Pantheists. In each chapter he spells out what these tribes believe, think, and feel in regards to politics, religion, the Bible, and various other issues.

I think one of the issues that I have with this is that he paints with a very broad stroke. For instance, he says that 4 out of 5 Americans consider themselves Christian (which boils down to 80% of the population). He then spells out what these 150 million people believe, how they act, and what they think. I realize that this is the limitation of such work. Anytime you do a survey of American Religion, thought, and life you will have to use a broad stroke, but I was hoping to find something more in this work.

Now I am not saying that I didn’t find anything helpful…..Here are some thoughts that I have agreed with or been challenged by:

“The future of America depends more upon the compassionate engagement with society by devoted Christians than upon their persistent insistence of their moral supremacy.”

“Sadly, Christians in America are not seen as loving, but we currently have a window of opportunity to demonstrate our love in the midst of hard times, confusion, and cultural chaos facing the nation.”

“Increasingly, we demand that the world embrace the worldview we possess or we respond in hostile ways: public criticism, nasty blogs, and text messages, lawsuits, angry letters to public officials or professional associations, confrontational letters to the editor, damage to property, or other means of retaliation.”

“Another paradox is that although they (Pantheist) view poverty as one of the most significant issues facing the country today, they have no personal interest in getting involved with the poor or with programs designed to address poverty.”

“Their (Muslims) identity is spiritual more than nationalistic.”

As I am only half way through the book, I will share some more later about how Barna sees these 7 faith tribes coming together to, what he calls, “restore our country to greatness.”

Sorry to be so late in reporting how our gathering was at Annual Conference. The week following conference, I was busy preparing for and attending my D. Min. classes at Bethel Seminary.

I was surprised and amazed by how many attended our gathering this year! Knowing that some who attended in previous years were not coming to San Diego made me wonder if anyone would show-up. Twenty-three people showed-up for all or part of the gathering! This is the highest attendance since the group started with Brian McLaren’s participation (2005).

No only was this year’s gathering different by having the highest attendance, but the topic of conversation was very different. In the past, this has been more of a time of support and sharing what’s happening in our ministry. This year, about 2/3’s of the group was older than 50. Some came because they feel like their traditional-styled ministry is not working, they don’t know much about emergent-style ministy, and so they came to find out. One literally asked, “What is emergent?”.

Some attempted to answer this question in different ways such as:
* the local community works best at defining it.
* it is measured both subjectively and objectively.
* it is a combination of both artistry and technology.

In addition to those who didn’t know much about the topic, there were some from a Sustaining Pastoral Excellence group who had studied the topic and gone to Europe to explore different churches. There were also a couple pastors present who are trying to move their congregation in this direction. So, much of the conversation was going back and forth between those who are new and curious about the topic and those who have seriously explored this style of ministry.

My wife commented afterwards that she felt like she had been in one of my seminary classes at Bethany. This was a good description of the level of conversation.

If I mis-interpreted what happened, please leave a comment below to correct my reflections! Those who didn’t make it West this year — we missed you!

Jeff Glass